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The Importance and Benefits of Getting Involved in Your Community

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This is a guest blog by Jon Savage

Getting Involved

Volunteer work and philanthropic efforts have been an integral part of Pennoni’s core values since 1966. And even prior to joining the firm in 2005, I’ve always valued the importance of them in both business and personal life.

“Getting Involved” With Your Community

“Getting involved” with your community is straightforward, and fun in many ways, but also involves your day-to-day routines, church, children, and other activities. My interests include improving local conditions and applying my expertise to my volunteer efforts. Most importantly, I’ve always had a sense of giving back to individuals and organizations that have helped me. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that’s really the best message I can relay to folks who do want to get involved in their communities.

getting involved

At the beginning of my career, after receiving my degree from Penn State and attempting to apply the expertise I had learned gaining a geography degree, I thought it might be useful to apply my planning skills to my local community where I grew up. As it turned out, there was a need on the local planning board for someone of my capabilities, even though I had just graduated with limited planning experience. While my tenure on the local planning board was about a year in length, I did learn many insights into local politics, and was able to contribute to objectives that the board was attempting to carry out and other areas of concern.

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Technology’s Role in Civil Engineering Inspection — Autonomous Drafting

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This is a guest blog by Nick Heim, P.E.

Autonomous DraftingCivil engineers are designers and builders of everything related to infrastructure: roads, bridges, dams, ports, and many others. While new construction of any asset gets a lot of attention for several reasons, that asset must be maintained over its lifespan — and civil engineers play a critical role in the inspection of it. As the third in a multipart series on technology’s role in civil engineering, I would like to talk about autonomous drafting and how it can improve your civil engineering inspections.

Note: The examples used in this month’s article relate to parking structures, because that is what the author specializes in. The author’s intent is that the technology showcased through these specific examples can be applied broadly to other civil engineering projects.

1. Inspection Drawing Creation

One of the first steps in any inspection is creating an accurate set of plans. Often, requests for existing drawings are not fulfilled, leaving us to create our own. This process is often very tedious and time-consuming due to the scale and repetitive nature of the tasks required.

To remove as much of this manual and laborious effort from your workflow as possible, consider use of software such as Airworks. Given inputs in the form of aerial imagery (Airworks also accepts three-dimensional data, but my experience was limited to 2D imagery), Airworks uses artificial intelligence to identify and autonomously draft common features of civil engineering projects.

Obtaining aerial imagery of your project site can be done in multiple ways, including:

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The Benefits of Conflict Resolution for Engineers

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This is a guest post by Tiffani Teachey

Conflict Resolution

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ~ Marie Curie

Conflict resolution is an essential skill for any engineer. When disputes arise, it is crucial to have the ability to calmly and effectively communicate with all parties involved. By using conflict resolution techniques, engineers can resolve disagreements quickly and efficiently while maintaining positive relationships with coworkers. In this blog post, we will discuss the benefits of conflict resolution for engineers. We will also provide tips on how to effectively resolve conflicts. Let’s get started!

Engineers can effectively resolve conflicts through the following tips:

  1. Stay calm
  2. Listen attentively
  3. Be respectful

Conflict Resolution

Stay Calm

When engineers are faced with a conflict, they should stay calm and try to understand the other party’s point of view. They can do this by using empathy or stepping back from their emotions so that cooler heads prevail! Show that you’re not angry or upset by keeping your voice calm and repeating back to them what their point is. This will help diffuse the situation quickly, without anyone getting too worked up about it! The best way to handle a conflict is by staying calm and following these three steps:

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Not Enough Hours in the Day? These Tips Can Help You Out

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This is a guest blog by Pamela A. Scott

enough hoursTime. It seems no one has enough of it, even though we all have the same 24/7.

Here I sit on a Friday morning with — get ready for it — free time!

This email came in late yesterday afternoon. “Pam, I hate to do this, but I’ve got to reschedule our call.” I’m glad that client couldn’t hear me cheering. Yes! Scheduled time has been freed! Now what?

If I had my druthers, I’d be out in the sunroom, immersed in a novel I’m reading. Instead, I’m writing this blog because it’s due next week, and I want to get it done now.

If you wrestle to get control of how you spend your time, check out these resources.

50 Questions That Focus on Your Relationship With Time

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What Is Your Purpose? Three Timeless Pillars to Guide Your Future

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This is a guest blog by Gina Covarrubias

Your PurposeWhether you are a student, professional, forcibly unemployed, or just taking a break, I have great news: each can be approached the same way! Apply these three pillars anytime to maximize your life purpose and guide your future.

Pillar 1: Service

Service is about directing your efforts toward a cause bigger than yourself. It includes carving out time and energy for the sake of serving an external purpose.

It can mean serving your team or organization in the workplace. Maybe it involves supporting your neighbors, your environment, or your country. Applying a service approach to your surroundings is one way to share your unique gifts with the world.

For example, try to answer:

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3 Engineering Career Success Tips from CEOs & VPs Who Started Where You Are

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This is a guest post by Zachary White

success

“How did you do it?” I love asking top leaders this question for one simple reason.

Success leaves clues.

I’ve asked top engineering leaders, from the Fortune 500 to Silicon Valley startups, how they got their results on my podcast. I want to share a few of their recent answers with you.

NOTE: This is not an exhaustive list, and they are not ranked in order of importance. That’s because the most important tip for you is always unique to your situation! So work with your own coach and mentor on which of these you need to focus on first, and go find a dozen more solutions to your unique challenges.

1. Find Your Mentor — AND Your Mentees

Everybody talks about the importance of having a mentor. I personally believe in having a tribe of mentors.

But very few leaders talk about the importance of finding your mentees as well.

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There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

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This is a guest post by Dr. Rae Taylor

lunchI believe there is a general consensus that buying pizza for the office leads to an unquantifiable increase in office morale. I would extend this further and say that in general, food is a great motivator and healthy food, being an energy sustainer, is by extension a visible morale booster. I once bought some snack bars and jerky for a crew to take with them to a tricky access site. When the crew was loading up the van, I could hear excited mutterings like, “Are these really for us?” and “Hey, have you seen that we have snacks?” As if it wasn’t pretty much the easiest thing that I could have done for them.

Some larger (mostly tech) companies take the morale boost one step further and provide free (or at least heavily subsidized) food courts for their employees. They tend to offer a variety of meal options, often including many healthy options too. This is, of course, a trap to make the staff stay longer in the office in the hope that they will work more hours. But because people do work long hours, it’s incredibly useful. It is also costly and unrealistic for most companies to do.

I was thinking about this while watching the new season of “Queer Eye” (do not judge unless you are also up every few hours feeding a newborn and need something to keep you awake that you don’t have to focus on). With the increase in the number of hours we work and commute came a huge increase in people saying they don’t have the time to cook or grocery shop. As such, they rely on fast food and take-out, which tends to be less healthy. In the show, a member of the makeover team shows the recipient how to cook something that’s easy to make, healthy, and tasty. This made me think about how much I would have loved this kind of guidance when I was working crazy hours, and thinking about it more, how much I would love it even now that my schedule is more relaxed, albeit fuller.

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Shut Down Analysis Paralysis and Start to “Satisfice”

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This is a guest blog by Pamela A. Scott

analysis paralysisDo you struggle to make decisions? Most of us do—at least when dealing with something significant.

Do you find yourself trapped by analysis paralysis? Many of us do. We think and we think and we think, and then we think some more. And maybe we eventually act.

I believe decision-making and analysis paralysis are intertwined. You can throw decision fatigue into that mix as well. Decision fatigue occurs because we simply have too many decisions to make on any given day. Check out this site for lots more on decision fatigue.

In his book “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less,” Barry Schwartz delves into why we struggle to make decisions.

285 Types of Cookies, Oh My!

In his neighborhood supermarket, he found 285 varieties of cookies. Can you pick just one? The average supermarket carries nearly 40,000 items for you to pick from. It gives me a headache to even think about those choices.

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Your Ears Are Your Strongest Resolution and Negotiation Weapons

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This is a guest post by Gabe Lett, FSMPS, CPSM, LPC
Ears

Most content that centers around communication and conflict resolution has to do with assessing your feelings, your body language, your decision-making process, your attitudes, and your behaviors. Not that these are bad recommendations, but they fall short of what makes the biggest impact when resolving conflict and negotiating. Where most advice falls short is that the advice focuses on YOU, YOUR feelings, YOUR body language, YOUR decision-making, YOUR attitude, and YOUR behaviors.

Many of you have heard the saying, “God gave you one mouth and two ears. He intended for you to listen twice as much as you speak.” Ears are the gateways to receiving critical information about your environment. Ears collect sound waves. During conflict or negotiation, ears are data gathering reservoirs collecting what is coming out of the other person’s mouth. Ears are your strongest weapons in resolving conflict and negotiating a solution.

Ears

To be fair, your ears are only the front-end of a process that leads to great conflict resolution and negotiation. But if you cannot get the front-end of that process right, nothing else in that process will work. Therefore, ears are where you begin.

When you focus on opening your ears, closing your mouth, and focusing on the other person, several key dynamics are put in motion:

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Focusing on Your Frustrations Slows You Down – Focus on This Instead to Make Progress

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This is a guest post by Jeff Perry, MBA

The Gap and The Gain“You are your own worst critic.” We hear this a lot, but does it have to be true? Do we always have to be so hard on ourselves as we try to make progress and reach new goals?

Goal setting, resolutions, making progress, and reflection are things many people do at the turn of a new year. Yet many people set goals only to not reach them, and get demoralized and stop trying.

So how do we actually find happiness in our lives and careers?

The answer: Lack of happiness, frustration, burnout, and dissatisfaction are driven mostly by focusing on The Gap — the difference between where we are now vs. the ideal that we want to be true. This focus gets us spending so much time feeling that sense of lack — “I’m not good enough, I don’t have enough, things will never be how I want them to be…” And on and on.

So how do we turn it around?

Focus on The Gain — the progress we’ve made, how we have improved, feeling gratitude, and more.

What Are The Gap and The Gain?

“The way to measure your progress is backward against where you started, not against your ideal.”
~ Dan Sullivan

The idea for The Gap and The Gain first came from Dan Sullivan, founder of the Strategic Coach, who has recently partnered with Benjamin Hardy to create a book about the concept.

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